


Filling Dead Air

by EnemyMine



Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s08e05 Dead Air, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 02:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11522964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnemyMine/pseuds/EnemyMine
Summary: My take on the "Dead Air" debacle and how Tony could have reacted to it.





	Filling Dead Air

Tony was seething. Really, honest to God, seething. He barely ever allowed emotions that strong in his repertoire. They were to be used only on very special occasions and never while at work. Too strong emotions could kill the case or even yourself. But now Tony was unable to hold it in check anymore.

This was way past the usual game of "Gang up on your Senior Field Agent". Tony understood a lot of things, work-related, socially, psychologically. But leaving your partner hanging had never been one of them.  
Two agents in one car to listen to the live feed of a third collecting voice samples. Standard procedure. Diverting from standard procedure had already been, that Tony had collected all the samples himself over a span of a couple of hours.  
35 houses, on average 3.2 inhabitants – not to mention possible staff, like a dog-sitter, a cleaning lady, a pool boy, who came by on their respective schedules, might have access to the telephone and might had to be tracked down next – that's 112 people in various states of readiness to talk to the stranger lurking in their neighborhood. Which is why procedure dictated to take turns.  
One single guy pretending to be a prospective buyer of a house worked well for a while, but him having a wife taking her turns too, worked even better.  
But as it was Tony was not compared to a Labrador from time to time for nothing. Once he got running, he didn't stop until called back in by the boss or the work was done. Must be the way he was bred.  
So when neither Tim nor Ziva had called him back to the car, he just never stopped to think, that it might have been too long for their turn.  
And then he had finished and returned to a silent car and two reading team mates, who openly admitted to not even have listened to the one guy, they were supposed to provide backup for! On a mission to collect voice samples, they had been tired of listening to his voice!

Tony was seething. He had not been able to express it then. First he had been to winded from all the running and the allergy that had caught up with him, then he had lost his voice. In between of bringing the evidence back to Abby and trying to dodge an examination in autopsy – which never worked, but he tried nonetheless – and then pursuing the guy whose voice it had been, there simply was not the time.

After the bomb at the ball park he had sneaked back into Abby's lab and listened to the recordings of his reconnaissance.  
He had done his job. Nothing more, nothing less. Talking to get the others to talk had been naturally a part of the job.  
No matter what his team mates thought, Tony was always very professional when it counted and it was in fact a part of his job description to uphold morale on the team. Which meant, Tony needed to play the clown to counteract Gibbs' gruff demeanor. And it worked too.  
Probies had not taking a run for the hill ever since they had found Kate about eight years ago. Which was pretty impressive considering that the longest stay beforehand had been six weeks, and she had been responsible for nearly getting Gibbs' killed on that snatch and grab mission in Spain.  
He had really liked Vivian Blackadder. The way, he had really liked Jeffrey White. You could really like someone and still want to see them dead, you know?

So what was wrong with those two? His Probies, his responsibility. As Senior Field Agent he was also responsible for a large amount of their training. Him, not Gibbs, was held accountable if they slacked on the job, put in badly typed reports, failed their physicals or didn't manage to group their shots nicely. Gibbs would grunt in their faces, but it was Tony's job to get them up to scratch.  
According to that, Tony kept his real feeling on various matters pertaining those two very close to his chest. No reason to risk the stability of the team on a temper tantrum. Not that Tony didn't want to scream and shout from time to time, to wake them up, to make them aware of the unfairness of it all.

It all started when Ziva was forced on the team per decision of the late director, Jenny Sheppard. The woman, who had been the handler of the operative who had put a hole through Kate's forehead and had gone after Abby too.  
She had shown no respect for their dead by prying the desk open instead of waiting for the invitation. And Gibbs had let it happen. Which pulled the whole team dynamic sideways from then on.  
Ziva taking it as the sign of having practically free reign, did just that. She ignored the chain of command, whenever it fit her needs. She only never dared to do it to Gibbs again after the first time, but Tony was free game. She corrupted McGee, who had no resistance to offer. He was brought up to respect women as much as high authority figures, the way his family was with an absentee Admiral father and only women around little Tim.  
With Kate that had been less a problem, since Kate was like a teenage girl, who still tried to figure out if she would become naughty or nice as an adult. It was all very sibling-like, even if over the top sometimes.  
Ziva however was naughty. Pure and simple. She had made her choices, if she ever had any. She did not know the subtlety of just playing at it, of toeing the line instead of crossing it.  
Gibbs never corrected her. Her skillset was not useful for investigations, but it hit a note inside the core of the former Marine. And after all she was a petite woman, who knew exactly how to cater to his need of being needed as a father figure. 

Poor misunderstood Ziva David. Never stood a chance for a happy childhood with her Mossad father in a country where war was an everyday occurrence. Right? Only she did. She made her choices. She often mentioned her sister Tali, who had not decided to follow down the path of their father. Well, she was dead now, but she would be either way. There was a constant war in Israel.  
Ziva once trained for ballet, but she abandoned it in favor of following her father's footsteps and not even repeating his mistakes but furthering them, since she was his tool. Her conflict resulting in figuring that one out. But then, seeing the truth, having it thrown into her face, she still had decided to stay in Israel last year. A decision, that nearly got her killed.

No, Ziva David was not a poor misunderstood girl, used as marionette by the powers that be. She was a highly trained professional. An operative on a constant mission on foreign soil. She might have applied for citizenship now, but in Tony's mind this night, while he listened to these thrice damned audio recordings, he came to realize, it was just another smokescreen. And they all had fallen for it.

Let's look at the facts. A foreign operative came to liaise at NCIS and was placed on its MCRT of all places. Because you had so many reasons to liaise with Mossad while working crime scenes, find dead or missing sailors, marines or their respective dependents or the trail of the money, means and motive of the crime. Nope. Not really.  
Oh, Team Gibbs was the best, so they worked terrorism too. But there they practically always acted after the fact. Preventing matters was a job by those agents at the Middle East Desk or in the Field Offices around the world, who gathered intelligence all the time. There would be the place for a liaison officer. But there Ziva would have faced the consequence of constant surveillance and suspicion. A spy amongst – for all intents and purposes – spies.  
Team Gibbs offered a wide range of unsupervised motion. Gibbs' daughter complex paired with the nature of their work and the minimum security clearance one got, when coming to work on the MCRT, it must be an operative's wet dream.

As Eli David had admitted last year in Tel Aviv, no operative did anything without his knowledge and approval. So let's rewind to the time they first met Ziva.  
Ari had supposedly gone native with Hamas. The son of Eli David a real terrorist for the Arabs. Wasn't that ironic?  
Not if you took into account, that he had been practically bred for just this one purpose. To infiltrate the enemy in a believable manner. As half Arabian he was born with the right foundation. But he never left the influence of his father. He was Mossad.  
Just like his half-sister and handler, Ziva. Only she had been raised to be the perfect operative for Mossad.  
Ari got killed in that basement, but from the crime scene report Tony just knew, it had not been Gibbs taking that shot. You might believe that at only a short glance, but small things were not consistent with Gibbs' official report of the shooting. That only left Ziva. And if she in fact shot her own brother, she did so on orders. But if that was true, her whole time with the team had been one big lie.

And there was just no evidence to the contrary. Only last year she had given Gibbs an ultimatum. Tony or her. According to her story, she was not able to trust Tony enough to work with him, since he had been forced to kill her boyfriend.

Okay, we have a "former" operative, who covered an active operative, when the latter operated illegally and against strict orders on US soil and the former then could not forgive her partner, for covering her and trying to get answers first, before calling in an official investigation into her dealings, and while doing so shooting the allegedly rogue operative in self-defense. Again, an operative having a problem with the use of excessive force in case of emergency. Yeah, right!  
She had the gall to call him jealous! Because he did his job as an investigator and her superior and partner. The only mistake he made was not to bring backup. But then he had thought to question her in her apartment and not the operative-boyfriend, who was not so rogue after all. Which she knew, which they all knew, by the time she attacked him in the yard of the Mossad headquarters and by the time she gave that ultimatum.  
Thankfully whatever debt Gibbs felt he had once owed her, had been paid more than once. And daughter-bonus didn't work, when Eli David was lurking in the shadows. But finally Gibbs chose Tony, because he had done so before and always would again. Something Ziva had never fully understood.

They all had missed Ziva, as schizophrenic as that may seem in hindsight, and so they had gone and sought revenge for her death. But since they found her alive, they adapted and saved her instead. They still found their revenge, finished Mossad's job and disposed of a terrorist.

What of that had been real?  
The facts: Mossad had sent Ziva to finish Rivkin's mission. The transport ship sunk after a gun fight. Evidence showed no complacency of Ziva in the matter, but then she was the only eye-witness and still somewhat considered a team member. Let's just say one word: Biased.  
The only way it mattered, if Ziva had taken any other shot than to defend herself on that ship, was legally. There were no survivors and the victims were scum or had exactly known what they had signed up for. Not to justify it, if they truly had messed up the investigation like that.  
Back to the facts: They found Saleem. Ziva's target, when she supposedly died. To take revenge, they went after him.  
Mossad had operatives in the area and even eyes on Saleem's camp. They had known, that Ziva had been alive and was kept there. Still they had not taken action against their supposed target. Why?  
Because they didn't want to get their hands dirty and trouble with other forces in the area. Let some cowboy US agency come in like the cavalry and save the damsel in distress. If they all got killed in the process, too bad. But then the failure would not be on Mossad's head.  
Now, they all survived, saved the damsel and killed the terrorist. Cue in Ziva's sudden need of putting distance between her father and herself. Something that had not been a problem, when she had agreed to his terms and the mission. Now suddenly that all was reason enough.  
Okay, so she refused to talk about what had happened to her at Saleem's hands. And Tony really didn't want to even imagine, what had been done to her. Still, not his problem. She was given professional help and the rest was her choice. Like with every other agent. Only she was no agent. She only applied for a position after some time, in which she was given generous use of Navy room and board. She was treated like a dependent.  
She only applied for citizenship, when it became obvious she could not get around it, if she ever wanted back onto the team in full capacity. And once she had gotten rid of the visitor badge, she had started up the old seduction game. Toned down a bit, but still hot and cold for Tony to keep him out of balance. McGee was lured back into the realms of insubordination with the same aim. Plus it prevented Tim to look to closely at things out of guilt. And Gibbs' defenses were slowly weakened to see her as a surrogate daughter again.

No, not a lot of the last years seemed to have been real. Rule #36, bordering on #40.

So where did this newest "prank" fit in? 

Best case scenario: It really had been a thought- and tasteless prank and would only really needed to be addressed appropriately in case of more thoughtlessness.

Worst case scenario: Terrorist group gets suspicious about the man snooping around, asking all the neighbors all these questions. Since they don't like their tax Dollars at work working against themselves, they decide to whack the guy somehow – maybe a shovel to the head, maybe shotgun blast to the face, who is to say? They figure out, he's an agent, they find the wire, they search for the backup.  
Ziva as the experienced operative would notice the change in temperature, so to speak. Easy to pretend to have to take a leak and as a woman, she would not be relegated to use the thermos. So, she would sneak away from the car, hide away, until McGee had been caught unaware. As immersed as he had been in his magazine such scenario was very likely. Unaware McGee gets whacked. Once the danger is over, Ziva comes back. She's going to dishevel her clothes, rip it in places, maybe puts a nice shiner to her own face, mess with the electronics, if their aren't already destroyed – make the following believable.  
She would call Gibbs and would then pretend to have started the search grid for poor, poor Tony. 'Oh, the terrorists must have made him, when she had been answering the call of nature. Poor Timmy, she only just came back, when it was already to late. Tony? she had not heard from him since the attack.'

Most probable scenario: Ziva would slowly but surely lose control about her 'naughty' side. McGee would slowly but surely follow her lead. In the end all would be somehow pissed at Tony and the director would start wondering again, why he was Senior Field Agent in the first case. Mossad would cross their path again and all hell would break lose. Again.

No, thank you! Tony really didn't need that to happen. Again. He was really tired of all of that.  
And the problem remained. 

They had disobeyed orders by going against procedure! It had not just been a prank! A prank would have been them telling him, they hadn't listened, when they actually had done it. Really turning off the radio and therefore the only line of communication to an undercover operative did not qualify as a prank. That was criminal negligence.  
As their Senior Field Agent Tony could not let that one slide. They had done it to their direct superior. There was no telling, what they would do to a Probationary Agent, a TAD, someone they did not know or trust. 

Tony sighed. His anger had faded a good bit since his brain had started to take over. Getting an ulcer was not the solution, just ask Burley.  
If he filed a complaint, it was possible the director would dismiss it, without even considering the evidence. Leon Vance was practically drooling over McGee and Ziva was, no matter what, still the daughter of his old friend, Eli. Tony was still only the unloved redheaded step-child.  
If he went to Gibbs, there was always the risk of getting a headslap and a 'Get over it'. But then there was also the unwavering belief in certain structures and rules. His own especially.  
If he addressed the matter at the top of the ladder, he would be whacked three ways from Sunday by Gibbs either way. Because on Gibbs team, you didn't bypass the chain of command. 

Tony decided to take it someplace else. NCIS headquarters were pretty lonely this late, the Navy Yard could be downright scary come nighttime. Not the best place to come to a solution, that could make or break this team.  
Practically on autopilot he drove down the well-known streets. After ten years in DC there was little he had not yet seen. He also knew the rhythm on these streets at all times. Mostly because of the first few months, when he had tried every possible route from home to work and back at every thinkable time. Also from his usual places to hang out, like his jogging route, the ball park, etc. He always knew exactly how long it would take him to come in, when they got the call. He also knew when the probies dragged their feet and pretended it had been the usual time.

When he stepped over the threshold, he barely remembered the actual way. Immediately the feeling of coming home started to envelope him. He tossed his keys on the table, went to the shelf with the wooden lock-box for his gun, then took towards the kitchen. It was a night for a cold beer and thankfully one of his favorite brand was awaiting him. He took the first swig by the shine of the fridge light, before he let his feet carry him further.

He was greeted by the familiar smell of sawdust and the sound of sanding and the low tunes of the TV set which was always showing either the news or the Farm Report. Gibbs didn't look up at Tony's descent or at him sitting down on his favorite step. They remained in their respective thoughts for the duration. Only stopping once the last beer had been swallowed and the sound from above indicated a delivery of pizza.  
Of course, Gibbs had anticipated his arrival. Tony silently bowed to the master as he climbed back upstairs to get the tasty treat. Pepperoni, sausage, extra cheese. His favorite. Somehow Gibbs knew, or it wouldn't have been the ultimate comfort food.  
He only asked his question by subtly raised eyebrow. The answer was an eye roll. No grunt though, so it had not been too obvious that Tony had been troubled.  
He really liked this simple communication. Had taken him a while to get it right, sometimes he still stumbled over minute nuances. But he was pretty fluent in 'Gibbs' now. Overtaken only by Gibbs senior, Jackson. No one would ever be better than good ol' Jack.

Amicably they shared the pizza straight from the box. Then Tony cleaned up and grabbed a piece of sanding paper. With the grain, never against it. That left damage that one might not be able to level out.  
Like with life. You went against the mainstream, you risked getting hurt. But life didn't allow you to streamline through. There were whirls and waterfalls and dried out stretches. It was not the question to get out unscathed. It was the question of learning how to best level out the damage.

"Probie and Probette really fucked up this time, Boss."

Grunt, translated roughly into: "Go on."

"Can't let them think, they gotten away with it."

A nod: "You're their training officer."

"Nothing I can handle alone this time, Boss. Need backup on this one."

A tilt of the head: "What the hell have they done now?"

"Remember when I lost my voice? Of course you do, it's only been yesterday. But do you also remember how Ducky said it only was a light inflammation because of overuse?"

A short gaze: "Yeah."

"Well, not really surprising since I have in fact done all the talking with the residents of Royal Woods. Which would be no problem to me normally. I love undercover work, I'm good at it, why not get all the voice prints then. Regulations are written for worst case scenarios. Right?"

A grunt: "Get to the point."

"And we both know, worst case I am not. So I'm talking and flirting and jogging and running after cars…"

*whack*

"Yes, Boss. Thank you, Boss. I came back to the car with a sore throat to find them reading. Radio was silent, no feedback. McGee admitted to not having listened to the feed for a couple of hours, while Ziva added a slight about how they had been tired of hearing my voice."

The sanding stopped, the body turned.

"Yeah, my reaction exactly. Had to be a prank. But, it didn't stop bugging me. So I spent the last couple of hours listening to the recordings. It's there. The sound of the feedback, when I turned on the wire before I left the car and we exchanged some words. The missing feedback, when I got back in. There is of course no audio from them, while I was out there, so no evidence of the discussion of the fact. But I bet, Abby with her skills would probably able to filter out the exact moment they turned the radio off by the frequencies recorded or something like that."

Steely blues were watching him intently.

"No matter what forensics would find, that's a breach of trust. In a bad way, Boss. You know my history. You know why I had to leave Baltimore. I don't like to hang out my partners. Danny had done nothing to me personally, he 'only' took the money. It was enough, Boss. These two left me without backup while I was trying to voice print a possible terrorist! What's next? Shoving me in front of a gun? Boss.…"

A hand was raised and ingrained by years of habit, Tony lowered his head in waiting for the slap. Instead it did not connect.  
Gibbs touched him gently where his neck met his shoulder and kneaded softly the tense muscle underneath. The gesture made the younger man smile automatically, which he knew would in turn invoke a pleased feeling in the former Marine. As it always had been and probably always would be. Tony hardly ever let down his guard and the number of people he truly had let in in his whole life was smaller than the number of fingers on a man's hand, who lost a couple of digits working in a sawmill. Gibbs pretty much was the list.

"What I'm going to do, Boss? I can't just slap them on their wrists this time, but if I put it officially on record I ruin Probie's chance to ever have a career. He's still not officially promoted to Senior Field Agent. Senior Agent, because of his time in Cyberville, which would serve him well on his way of becoming director if he was not working in the capacity of a Field Agent! Who now seemed to have forgotten the most basic rules!"

Desperate emeralds turned to the familiar face, "I put that on record, it's more than just a black mark. That's a career ender. Suspension without pay, investigation by Internal Affairs, the whole she-bang. No one would want to work with him in the field ever again once that becomes known. He'd be lucky if he'd be able to ride a desk at NCIS. No other agency would hire him. His only way would be the private sector. But computer specialists have become a dime a dozen in recent years and it's been a while since he'd been at MIT. He's still top of the crop in the realms for agency purposes, but out there that won't be enough. My own probie, Boss.…"

The kneading hand didn't change its rhythm only its strength. Then the eyebrow was raised slightly: "Ziva?"

"I'm tired of pulling my punches around her, Boss. I did what I could to integrate her, to even make her feel at home. Hell, Boss, I risked my life for her. More than once. Her fucked up life is fucking mine up for six damn years now, Boss. No matter what, in the end it's always about her and the fucking Mossad. But somehow she always makes it out as if it all had been my fault. As if I'm not good enough to do my fucking job. She had not even been an investigator. Five years of risking every damn case, only because she could contaminate evidence in the eyes of the law. Because she was not only no fucking investigator, she was not even legally allowed to operate on US soil as an Operations Officer of Mossad." The Italian took a deep breath.  
Tornado Tony was on a roll now, "Six years, boss, of trying my best to teach her the ropes, without making her feel inferior or cater to her superiority complex. Because Miss Ninja Assassin naturally already knows everything, heard everything and has tried everything. Americans hide keys in flower pots. No matter, let's just pick the lock. One is bending the law, the other is breaking it. And wasn't she supposed to be schooled in spycraft? How about remembering little things like driving on the right side of the road and within a reasonable range around the tempo limit, especially since even a parking ticket could cause an international incident. Or not to fucking follow suspected foreign operatives without fucking call immediately for backup. To follow the fucking chain off command. To stop showing off her, oh, so superior skills of fighting, running, will power and just once make it on time, when the call comes on a Sunday.... Boss, I know, you and her share a bond. But I have to say it."

The curt nod was the only sign for him to continue, "This is not kosher, Boss. Not kosher at all. And it never was."

Tony straightened his shoulders, "As her superior, but more importantly as your second do I have to make the call. For the reputation and honor of the agency. For our security. We've risked enough. She has shaped up as an investigator, but at heart she'll always be an operative. I don't trust her. Not with my life and not ever with yours."

"Then she's off the team." The first words out of Gibbs' mouth startled and surprised Tony.  
Even more so, as his boss tapped softly on the back of his head, "Never been a question. OUR team. You and me till the end, DiNozzo. You are irreplaceable."

At that he tapped with his fingertips on the younger man's chin. A gesture only reserved to those, Gibbs loved.


End file.
